There was an arrogance, an independent and defiant air

Maniacal Catholics are still explaining that the bishop was right. Gerard Nadal even explains that the bishop was right to “push back against a culture of death.” By insisting that a woman should have been allowed to die along with her fetus, the bishop was pushing back against a culture of death. How does that work?

In essence the principle states that a lifesaving procedure that cannot be delayed, such as the removal of a cancerous uterus before the baby can be taken in a Cesarean section at viability (~25 weeks gestation), is permissible so long as the death of the baby is the indirect and unintended effect…

Such circumstances are extremely rare, given how early a baby can be delivered before full term at 40 weeks. The mother’s life must be in immediate danger and the treatment of her disease, which would also result in the death of the baby, cannot be forestalled.

Do you see what Nadal is doing there? He’s saying that if the woman’s life is in danger that is less than immediate, it is not permissable to do an abortion in order to remove or reduce the danger. He’s saying that doctors and hospitals should force women to risk their lives rather than abort an early fetus.

Keep constantly in mind that Nadal himself will never be put in danger by this policy. Neither will the bishop of Phoenix. Neither will a single one of the members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Neither will any of the Vatican honchos who pronounce on these matters. These rules and laws and policies are created entirely by men and they apply entirely to women. Women are a subject race when it comes to the Vatican.

Patients who seek Catholic healthcare do so because of the assurance that the facility and its clinicians adhere to the ERD’s. They do so because they seek the assurance that they will be told the truth and treated in accord with Catholic moral norms, and not railroaded down the disastrous path American medicine has decided to follow.

Bullshit. Not everyone in a Catholic hospital does “seek Catholic healthcare”; lots of people are stuck with it because it’s all there is; others want some features of Catholic healthcare without signing up to every crazed item of Vatican dogma.

I opined, and was pilloried for it, that Sister McBride was presiding over a shadow healthcare system that was active in promoting an agenda that ran counter to the mission of the Church. Nobody commits first-degree murder as a first crime. No Catholic hospital administrator, especially a professed religious, signs off on such an abortion for the first time in the manner in which Sister McBride conducted herself.

He’s implying, in a deniable sort of way, that McBride committed first-degree murder.

There was an arrogance, an independent and defiant air about it that pointed to something deeper and darker, something that would eventually come to light.

Aha! Now we have it! A god damn woman had an arrogant independent defiant air, and that points to something deeper and darker, which is female independence in general. Kill the beast! Mark its forehead!

Don’t forget that these are also men who voluntarily segregated themselves from women, so you can imagine what they probably think of women. Weren’t women the first sinners – they caused Adam to Fall, after all, and God cursed them with painful childbirth – which of course translates into women are not Real People ™. Hell, all they are doing is repeating some of the misogynistic BS from some of the early Church Fathers. I’m surprised that the arguments I’ve read haven’t included the caveat that the fetus was more important if it was a boy child. Gotta get new Altar Boys/Sex Toys from somewhere, right? And if it takes care of some sinful woman, well, so much the better.

To use an expression I recently heard, these people are complete and utter pillocks.

I don’t get why women are religious, what’s in it for them. I accept that in some countries they don’t have a choice but in the west come on. I can’t be entirely Stockholm syndrome surely. Even ardent feminist who have apoplexy fits when a sportsman/celebrity/politician says/does something sexist are strangely quiet when religion commits far worst crimes and is inherently misogynist.

Even the ones who aren’t religious are ‘spiritual’ and not out and out atheist. WTF. If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t know of any atheist women.

Its like refusing to lie when the nazi ask if you are hiding any Jews because lying is always a sin. There is a lack of subtlety and nuance to such moral reasoning. Rather like being a toddler. A big giant toddler gone out of control and put in charge of grownups.

Buford, there’s a philosopher (recently deceased) whose name escapes me at the moment who makes that argument: refusing to act is still a moral choice. It’s pretty convincing.

Sastra: I don’t know if you were referencing it, but there was a Catholic moral philosopher who made that exact argument. Kant of course made the same argument with some pretty ridiculous logic…

David Leech: I am not a woman, so I can’t really offer insights, but if I had to take a guess, I suspect it has something to do with some women internalizing the sexist notion that men are Rational and women are Emotional. Anecdotally, the women I know who are religious are less religious than the men who are. I have no stats on that though so I could be totally wrong.

Sorry for the double post, I just wanted to add that there’s a segment in feminist movements that rejects science and rational thought since they’ve been used to oppress women. They favor post modern BS instead; it’s very depressing.

Of course, if Catholics really took their beliefs seriously, they would never enter a hospital and simply pray to Jesus, who of course cures all sicknesses if you pray hard enough. But no, not only must they own the intellectual rights of a hospital, but they must dictate their sick beliefs against one of the greatest accomplishments in science: medicine.

That may be part of the thinking here: Since this is obviously against God’s rules, we have to leave the entire matter in God’s hands. If God chooses not to save the woman and her baby, then obviously she must have been wicked and depraved. It’s all so obvious, isn’t it?

The sort of arse backwards thinking exemplified by the DDE gives rise to the point raised by the (Catholic) Alexis C in the comments at Coming Home:

And what devout Catholic women are hearing from this case is that even if pregnancy will result in certain death for us AND our babies, we must shuffle off to the grave, unless we are “lucky” enough to have ectopic pregnancies (where the tubes can be removed) or cancerous uteruses (where the uterus can be removed). I’m not sure what the difference is between a healthy tube that happens to have a baby in it, and a healthy uterus that has a placenta in it that’s draining the life out of you, but apparently the former can licitly be removed while the latter can’t.

Quite. And she’s pregnant. Here’s unpraying she and her baby stay healthy.

Let me second Mark’s recommendation of Nadal’s comments thread, and gratitude for Alexis C, who also provides M. Therese Lysaught’s analysis, if you have the stomach for more moral theology. Nadal:

While a rare etiology, the PH was but one of many that have led to the murder of the unborn in this viper’s nest. Other deaths were the result of a child being conceived in rape or incest, or for the “mental health” of the mother.

I have just read M. Therese Lysaught’s analysis, which strikes as eminently humane, sober, honest and responsible, quite unlike the the morally contemptible, bullying and irresponsible rants that constitute Nadal’s approach to the situation. He goes so far as to accuse as Sister Murphy of intentionally setting up the bishop, and calls her, among other things, ‘pitiable’ and ‘contemptible’. What was that line of Blake’s? – ‘As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.’ It’s the perfect line for Nadal.

That may be part of the thinking here: Since this is obviously against God’s rules, we have to leave the entire matter in God’s hands.

Many years ago, when I was a child, I was raised in a JW family. That was exactly the attitude in their anti-blood-transfusion stand (and in that case was plainly not sexist). They did not deny that transfusions could save a life. Their position was, however, that saving your life now will doom you for eternity.

In an ideal Catholic society you would presumably insist all hospitals never directly abort, so it’s important to a Catholic woman about to become pregnant that she understands that the Catholic Church would allow her to die should a fatal condition arise that could only be resolved by a direct abortion. Isn’t it?

I see where he has to be out of town for a death in the family, but Gerard Nadal did take the time to reply to my concerns.

This was a set-up by McBride et al.

That’s it. A group of insufficiently pro-life Catholics, led by a sinister nun, conspired to keep a woman with pulmonary hypertension at St. Joseph’s Hospital long enough so that they would have no choice but to perform an abortion, which would then be justified by Lysaught.

Keep constantly in mind that Nadal himself will never be put in danger by this policy. Neither will the bishop of Phoenix. Neither will a single one of the members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Neither will any of the Vatican honchos who pronounce on these matters. These rules and laws and policies are created entirely by men and they apply entirely to women. Women are a subject race when it comes to the Vatican.

You nailed it again, for the umpteenth time, with terrible, biting precision. Thank you.

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